“If Labour is serious about delivering the highest sustained growth in the G7 then it has to reject the siren voices for austerity – and invest in workers and the public services they provide.”
By Fran Heathcote, PCS General Secretary
Labour has come into government with its number one mission to deliver the highest sustained growth in the G7. It has no chance of doing that unless and until it boosts people’s incomes.
There can be no stronger economy without the stronger wages that provide extra disposable income.
And people are really struggling. Whether that’s workers on low pay or insecure contracts or people out of work living off the most meagre benefits system in western Europe.
This week research by the Trussell Trust found 73% of families on Universal Credit are going without essentials – including over two-thirds of those in work – and one-in-five had to use a food bank.
Many of our lowest paid members, employed by the Government, have to claim Universal Credit in order to top-up their low wages.
This year, for the first time in a long time, the Government has offered above-inflation pay deals to public sector workers of 5%. But that comes after years of pay freezes, pay caps and below-inflation rises that have meant most workers have seen their living standards fall.
That’s why PCS is campaigning for pay restoration across the public sector – and will be pushing that demand at the TUC this year.
Research commissioned by PCS shows that boosting the pay of public sector workers on lower and middle incomes more than pays for itself, by increasing demand in the economy – and boosting government revenues.
Many of our lowest paid members – civil servants and those working on outsourced contracts as cleaners and security guards in government buildings – are earning the minimum wage.
And many like security guards at jobcentres and cleaners at the Foreign Office are in dispute over poverty rates of pay working on a government contract.
Labour promised in its manifesto the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation” – to end the exploitation of contractors driving down terms and conditions for workers, and driving down standards too, while creaming off large profits for their fat cat bosses.
That model is broken, it has broken household finances and broken our economy.
In the last five years the average wealth of the wealthiest people on the Sunday Times Rich List has increased by 50%. Last year the average wage of the chief executives of Britain’s biggest corporations grew by 19%.
So when I hear ministers telling us: there’s not much money around it just doesn’t wash.
The money is there, we just have to get from those who have been grabbing it for themselves at the expense of their workers, customers or tenants.
Why are the “tough choices” always the ones that screw pensioners out of their Winter Fuel Payment or disabled people out of their benefits? That mean libraries close or workers are made redundant?
Why can’t we have some “tough choices” that impose a windfall tax on the banks and other profiteering corporations? Or that equalise capital gains tax with income tax, so that those who earn their money from speculation pay the same tax rates as those vital workers who keep this country running.
PCS will not accept another round of cuts to public services or our members’ jobs. Austerity always was and remains a political choice not an economic necessity.
We already know there are huge backlogs in different parts of the public sector – from NHS waiting lists to the courts.
Public services need a substantial injection to resource just to keep functioning. Talk of further restraint or austerity is preparing for disaster.
And cuts have consequences. Lower wages and benefits means more poverty, and that means more strain on public services through ill-health, crime and worse educational outcomes.
If Labour goes down the George Osborne route of austerity, it will fail – and it will be letting down the people who voted for them on the promise of ‘change’.
But if Labour is serious about delivering the highest sustained growth in the G7 then it has to reject the siren voices for austerity and invest in workers and the public services they provide.
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